What connects a book about the way ants communicate, a Cumbrian mining accident, a British official in a 1952 air disaster, and a young Egyptian woman travelling to museums across Europe following the death of her brother? No, this is not a fiendish question from Radio 4's Round Britain Quiz, but the new show from Curious Directive, the young company whose multilayered, multidimensional Your Last Breath signalled them as a major talent at last year's festival.

There is no need to revise that opinion, even if this latest piece suffers a little from the second-fringe syndrome of trying a bit too hard to be clever. The company really know what they are doing in terms of stagecraft and multimedia, and their work reflects the fragmentary nature of the way we receive information in the modern world. This performance contains some wonderful images and moments: an aeroplane swooping low across the desert as it heads towards catastrophe; a lost miner for ever wandering the tunnels of a closed colliery; two girls suddenly connecting on a bus.

The show's ambition and questing intelligence are admirable; likewise its attempt to tease out the legacy of Britain's colonial past and examine what artefacts mean to us – whether it be the Rosetta Stone in the British Museum, a tawdry trinket bought on holiday or a piece of modern art. But it sometimes lacks a sense of humour, and although it is as multilayered in construction as Your Last Breath, it lacks that show's emotional complexity. The result is an hour you can admire for many reasons, but which never quite touches the heart.